Roy Peter Clark’s essay, “I Won’t Use Writing as Punishment, I Won’t…,” proposes to eradicate the predisposed thought that writing is a penalty for doing something wrong. The analysis of feelings by Sigmund Freud in comparison to the punishment and reward system of B.F. Skinner, introduced students to the predisposed phobia of writing that has been embedded by our education system. Clark pints out that teachers petition the use of writing to gain control and create the impression that writing is an instructive and beneficial tool. However, writing used as punishment, offers no constructive fundamentals of education. There is no way a student can refine the merit of his or her words formed as a way to induce penance. Clark recalls the two
